May 6, 2016

Training for 5/6/16

Yesterday, I just couldn’t get up the motivation to get outside and run. Some of it had to do with this perpetually gray and dreary weather we’ve had for more than a week now, but honestly it was mostly just laziness. I kept putting it off until I didn’t have time to run at all before I had to cover something for the paper. Oh well.

I have a 10K in the morning, so I’ll probably just take Pepper out for an easy 3-miler today. I think it finally quit pouring rain out there.

Speaking of Pepper… his blood and urine work came back. Something’s screwy with his liver AND his pancreas, in addition to the fact he’s still got protein in his urine. The vet thinks this might be the earliest he’s ever caught a case of Lyme nephritis — a rare kidney disorder caused by Lyme disease. The only way to confirm that, however, is a freaking kidney biopsy, which is invasive and expensive.

So we’re just going to assume that’s what it is and put Pepper on a special low-protein food, a round of antibiotics he’s taken before after testing positive for the organism that causes Lyme, plus another drug, and then check him again in a month to see what’s happening.

The next step after that is a very expensive drug he would have to take indefinitely. Beyond that, we’d have to take Pepper to some fancy veterinary internist in Annapolis.

I don’t know what to think. The vet said the fact Pepper isn’t acting sick at all and even put on and maintained weight is a good sign, and the total opposite of any case of Lyme nephritis he’s ever treated — it usually isn’t even caught until the dog is very sick. But every time he checks one of Pepper’s bodily fluids, more levels are out of whack. I guess I’ll just try to stay positive and hope for the best.

Anyway, tomorrow is, as I mentioned, that 10K at the Hyatt from which Pepper is banned for being a dog. It’s going to be chilly, and it might still be raining in the morning. I don’t mind so much, but Clark’s pretty annoyed his fancy new bike might get rained on in the ride he signed up to do.

Tomorrow evening, we’re having dinner with Clark’s family to celebrate his brother’s birthday, and there’s a NASCAR race in Kansas.

Sunday, I’m supposed to do a two-hour run. It’s also Mother’s Day. Mom told us not to spend any money on her since we just paid for the trip we took, but I’ll at least get her a card and go see her.